December 12, 2011

Let's Talk Collaboration! #Collab4Good Twitter Chat December 13

Is your nonprofit working with partner organizations to meet its goals? Just starting to think about nonprofit collaboration? Maybe you're already a collaboration pro with many types of alliances under your belt. Whatever stage you're in, we invite you to join us for a Twitter chat to talk nonprofit collaboration!

On Tuesday, December 13 from 3:00-4:00pm, Nicole Born-Crow from our Foundation Center-Cleveland team (tweeting from @GrantSpace) and I (tweeting from @FCCleveland) will be hosting our first-ever Twitter chat on noprofit collaboration, with the hashtag #collab4good. My work over the past 2 years as leader of the Foundation Center's Nonprofit Collaboration Database project, has illuminated that nonprofit collaboration is growing in importance. That's why we'd like to start a conversation among those who are nonprofit collaboration and restrucuring pros, those in the early stages of identifying potential partners, and those just beginning to think about collaboration. Some of the questions we will be exploring include:

What is driving your organization to collaborate?

How do you identify collaborative partners? How do you know when the fit is right?

What were your biggest fears going into your collaborations? How did/do you overcome them?

Have you ever had a collaboration fall apart? What lead to its demise?

How do you maintain the balance of power in a collaboration?

Did you have any unexpected outcomes from your collaborations?

Details for the chat:

How and Why of CollaborationTuesday, December 13, 3:00-4:00pm ET Join @GrantSpace and @FCCleveland for a Twitter chat about nonprofit collaboration! To participate, you'll need a Twitter account, which you can create for free at Twitter.com. The hashtag for the chat is #collab4good, which you should follow and use during the chat.

One tool I would recommend is TweetChat. TweetChat is a web app that makes Twitter chats feel more like an old-school chat room. The best part about TweetChat is that it will automatically insert the hashtag for the chat at the end of all your tweets so you don't need to remember to add it. To use:

Use the sign-in button at the top right corner of the screen to authorize TweetChat to use your twitter account

Once you're signed in, enter the chat's hashtag (in this case, #collab4good) without the # sign into the search box at the top center and press go.

You're ready to go! Write your tweets in the box without worrying about the hashtag and enjoy the chat!

This is a great opportunity to talk about nonprofit collaboration with a group of like-minded professionals, get feedback and ideas for your own efforts, and share your expertise. So, whether you're already collaborating, leading organizations through complex consolidations and mergers, or just starting out, this is a great opportunity to show that you're ahead of the pack. See you on Twitter on the 13th!